


La Vie, Santé, Bonheur

by queenbaskerville



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, France (Country), Grief/Mourning, Short One Shot, The author has a hard-on for Sappho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: When Berlin is done, Lorraine goes to France.





	La Vie, Santé, Bonheur

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this right after I saw Atomic Blonde in theaters. 
> 
> Anything in ⟨ ⟩ is in French. I don't actually speak any languages other than English, sadly. 
> 
> Title is from Sommeil by Stromae.

The Eiffel Tower isn't as big in person as everyone expects.

 

_We need you out of the spotlight for a few months. Take a vacation. We'll get you settled in America soon._

_I hear Paris is nice this time of year._

 

Lorraine holds a teacup in her hands and stares at the monument in the distance. There's a family of five behind her, a mother stuttering through abysmal French to try to order some sandwiches for her brood of kids and her tired-looking husband while the toddler screams and the other kids chatter at each other about an irrelevant cartoon. The waitress speaks English well enough that the matter is settled, and then the mother begins fussing at the children for wandering away too far.

"We wanted to see the tower," one whinges. "It's not close enough. Can we go see it soon?"

"I want to go home," says the other. His voice is nasally, and it grates on the ears. "I hate it here. I want to go home."

Lorraine rises with the grace she uses for being a normal person in public and leaves enough francs to pay for her tea and the tip that the English family should leave but likely won't. She hasn't finished her tea. It was too watery, anyway.

* * *

 

Lorraine leans against a streetlight pole and lights a cigarette. The pulsing music of the nightclub down the street is almost too faint to hear. She's dressed perfectly for an occasion like that— she knows exactly the sort of attention she could get if she waltzed in— but she doesn't look forward to playing that game tonight. She can't get in the mood.

 

_My friend owns a nightclub not far from here. You should come._

 

She lets her cigarette fall from her fingers and takes out another one. The lighter illuminates nothing but her scarred hands, just another flame in the dark in a city with a thousand lights.

Somewhere, she knows, there's a band playing rock music and hundreds of young people bobbing their heads along to it. Somewhere a child is being born. Somewhere a man is being murdered. Somewhere someone thinks that they've finally gotten their happy ending.

The song in the nightclub changes. Lorraine stays where she is.

* * *

 

"<Oh, are you a tourist? You speak very well; I didn't realize you weren't a local.>"

"<Thank you,>" Lorraine says, giving the baker behind the counter a small smile. The shy but happy tourist persona. "<It actually isn't my first time in France.>"

"<Have you visited the Pont des Arts yet? It is quite a sight.>"

Lorraine hasn't heard of this bridge. She doesn't know if she cares to know anything about it. "<Not yet. I'll have to add it to my list.>"

Thankfully, the baker doesn't decide to ramble on about it. "<Are you enjoying your trip?>"

"<I've found that one stereotype about France has been true everywhere I go here,>" Lorraine remarks. She tears off a small piece of her croissant and puts it in her mouth, chewing it delicately before replying. "<The bread is perfection.>"

"<France is a wonderful country,>" the baker says, voice filled with strength. "<I am glad you've come to visit.>"

There's a picture of a young French soldier hanging on the wall behind the register, old enough to be World War II era. He does not smile for the camera, his countenance stern, but he doesn't yet have the bags under his eyes or the worry lines in his forehead that a veteran of battle would have.

"<It is a wonderful country,>" Lorraine agrees, her eyes meeting the baker's cheerful gaze with practiced ease.

* * *

 

Lorraine likes to think that there's a version of this story where Delphine takes her to the Somme. She likes to think that there's a version of this story where Delphine reads Sappho and Keats to her while they picnic on a hill, and the Eiffel Tower looms in the distance, the point of it brushing against heaven.

Maybe there is.

 

_You didn't have to kill her._

_Oh, that, now? After everything you've done?_

 

This is not that story.

* * *

 

There is an article in a newspaper that Lorraine steals from a distracted businessman about a local girl winning a poetry contest. The town is small enough that that sort of thing makes front page, and Lorraine eyes the address of the library with some unidentifiable feeling.

(This is a lie. She can easily categorize and analyze everything about herself; she has to, for this job. She doesn't want to identify what this is. She doesn't want to feel it.)

When she attends the reading later in the week, she sits towards the back, donned in round spectacles and a sweater like any ordinary librarian in the room. The young girl is hoarse, either from illness or screaming, and her words are beautiful without holding much meaning.

 

_You should've been a poet. Or a rock star._

 

Lorraine closes her eyes. _What would you have written for this prompt? Does your mother have a stack of childhood rhymes in a drawer somewhere, waiting for your review when you come home?_

 

_Recite something for me._

_Hmm?_

_A poem you like._

_Oh, we're requesting things now, are we? Maybe I will. If you promise to make it worth my while._

_I think that can be arranged._

_'To an army wife, in Sardis: / Some say a cavalry corps, / some infantry, some, again, / will maintain that the swift oars / of our fleet are the finest / sight on dark earth; but I say / that whatever one loves...'_

 

The room applauds when the girl finishes reading her poem. It is probably the loudest this library has ever been in it's ancient life. Lorraine thinks about running her hands through Delphine's hair.

* * *

 

A lock and key don't cost too much in the grand scheme of things. The francs are spent easily. It is not a long walk to the bridge. There are men and women lingering along its edges, leaning on the railing. A woman is praying. A father is helping his young child fasten a lock.

"<Whisper a secret, and then let it go,>" he tells the boy.

"<What kind of secret?>"

"<Anything.>"

"<Can it be about Grandma?>"

"<Anything, dearest. Anything.>"

 

_You look different when you tell the truth. Your eyes change._

 

The child whispers something into his hands, and then his father puts him on his shoulders so he can throw the key over the railing. The boy pitches it with as much strength as he can muster.

 _I think I could have loved you forever._ Lorraine stares across the river into the horizon. _I think I could have loved you for the rest of my life._

She twists the lock around the chainlink fence of the bridge. The key is weightless in her palm, light like a needle or a string. She holds her arm out over the fence and turns her wrist. The key slides out of her hand, a glint of sunlight catching it as it tumbles through the air and plonks into the river below. A key isn't too different from a corpse, in the end. Lorraine had read the report of James's death— he'd ended up in a body of water, sinking, sinking, locking part of her heart away as he went.

France is for lovers. Lorraine is alone. She does not belong here.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The love locks tourist tradition on the Pont des Arts started around 2008, but we're going to pretend like it's a longtime tradition that would've been around during the Cold War for the sake of this fic. History buffs can ignore the last bit if that's irritating.
> 
> The poem Delphine begins to recite is "To an army wife, in Sardis..." by Sappho, translated by Mary Barnard. I don't know what year Barnard translated the work, but she lived from 1901-2001, so it's possible that Delphine could know her translation.


End file.
